Many consumers desire to apply labels or covers to articles in order to display information relating to the article or to provide an enhanced, decorative appearance to the article. For example, with the advent of writable optical disks, such as CD- and DVD-type optical disks, many consumers wish to apply information to a once-blank optical disk that lists or describes the files subsequently written to the optical disk. While it is generally possible to simply mark directly on the optical disk with a pen or other marking tool, many consumers would rather apply information to the optical disk in a more “finished” or professional manner. In addition, many consumers wish to add decorative features when applying information to an optical disk, such as artwork, photos, colorful highlights, etc.
Printable labels have been developed that allow consumers to print images to a label, for example with an ink-jet printer, and attach or adhere the printed label to an optical disk. Such labels are generally provided with a removable backing that covers and protects an adhesive coating applied to a back of the label to enable the label to be fed through a printer and receive a printed image. After printing the label, a consumer generally removes the backing to expose the adhesive and then attaches the adhesive, and thus the label, to the optical disk.
While relatively simple to use, such labels have proved disadvantageous in that once the backing is removed from the label, the entire adhesive coating is exposed and a consumer must attempt to properly align the label on the optical disk while the consumer's fingers are in contact with the adhesive coating. Contact between the consumer's fingers and the adhesive can compromise the integrity of the adhesive and can also make properly aligning the label relative to the optical disk difficult.
In addition to applying information or decoration to optical disks, many consumers also wish to customize and protect other articles, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones, musical players such as MP3 players, etc. Covers have been developed for this purpose that allow a consumer to apply an overlay to the article in question to both protect the article and to add decorative and informational features to the article.
While such overlays have met with some commercial success, they have suffered from many of the problems inherent in printable optical disk covers. For example, once the adhesive on the article overlay is exposed, a user's fingers often contact the adhesive when attempting to align the overly with the article. Contact with the adhesive not only results in difficulty aligning the overly on the article, but the integrity of the adhesive can be compromised by dirt or oil on the user's fingers. In addition, such covers have not been known that wrap around the article from a front side to a back side, thereby improving adherence, while at the same time retaining visibility of branding information that may be present on the sides and/or back of the article.